Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

A WINNING COALITION

The aim of politics is to build a winning coalition, but u

nfortunately this insight appears to have escaped the Labor Party.

The other political requirement is compromise, but this time it's the Greens that appear to be unaware of the requirement . . .

IN WHICH I SAVAGE THE NSW ALP . . .

The first great Labor split
occurred on 15 September 1916. Billy Hughes was a Prime Minister in the middle
of a World War that was consuming soldiers like a mincing-machine every time
the whistles blew and they charged across the mud and into the bullets of the enemy.
He wanted to conscript more Australians so the ranks would be replenished in
time for the next futile assault. Others, particularly the Irish Catholics who
made up much of Labor’s base, didn’t want to see their children fed uselessly into
the maw of the living hell that was the Western Front.

The party allowed one referendum
on the issue. But when it failed Hughes continued fighting and the split
deepened. Finally he’d had enough. Realising he was being frustrated, Hughes
stormed out of a party meeting shouting, “those that think like me, follow me”.
Labor was out of office for the next thirteen years.

The party regained power in 1929,
just in time to be in office during the great depression. The question then (as
today) was how best to reinvigorate the economy. Was it best to cut spending
and slash debt; stimulate the economy with government programs; or embark on a
truly radical program and simply repudiate repayments to the “wealthy British
capitalists” who’d provided investment funds in the past?

Joseph Lyons was an acting
Treasurer who had no time for radicals, and he soon fell foul of a party that
couldn’t unite behind his ideas. As soon as his fingers were prized from the
levers of power, he walked from Cabinet and shortly afterwards crossed the
floor of parliament, leaving Labor behind. This time the party remained out of
office for just a few months less than a decade.

The third major split occurred in
1955. Again, it began as a dispute over a policy issue: should the government
provide assistance to private (and particularly Roman Catholic) schools? The
“Groupers”, a collection of anti-communist, conservative Labor supporters
disagreed with opposition leader Bert Evatt, who was steadfastly against the
provision of state-aid.When he
attempted to shovel responsibility for his defeat the previous year onto the
Groupers, they broke away and formed the Democratic Labor Party. A Labor leader
didn’t see what the inside of the Lodge looked like for another twelve years.

The art of politics is defined by
both persuasion and compromise. On the assumption that the party leader
actually believes in something – by no means a given in the current political
scene – their aim is firstly to persuade their own differing constituencies of
members to agree on a policy and then negotiate to implement it. This was the
conceptual breakthrough that allowed Gough Whitlam to finally bring the party
back from the political wilderness. He elevated himself above the sectional
interests and presented ‘the Leader’ as the figure who could broker the deals
to achieve the best outcomes for the party and the country. He acted like
Moses, holding the engraved stone tablets of the party platform above his head
like a talisman that would unite people who actually possessed very different
ideas about the right way to go forward.

When he became PM, Bob Hawke
created a similar mythology. “Consensus” was the buzzword and it worked, too.
He used ideas as a means of keeping his own personal project, living in the
Lodge, on track. But Hawke was always very careful to ensure he sold the
policies he’d brokered to the public as the best, or even the only, possible
response to whatever conundrum he was facing. This allowed the party not just
to occupy one section of the field, but also to possess the best alternatives
to resolve any problem. He owned all the ideas, because he kept searching for
the best ones.

And so to today. Over the weekend
the clever people in NSW Labor who earlier steered that branch of the party to
such an overwhelming defeat at the last state election decided they’d finally
worked out who is preventing the party from regaining power. As it turns out it
appears as it isn’t the coalition at all. It’s the Greens. The entire party
conference – the one opportunity that was guaranteed to give Labor a bit of
free publicity so it could present itself as a united and dynamic force for
good – was squandered with infighting and blame.

And do you think the one person
who could have reached above the squabble to offer a united path forward did
so? Do you think the Prime Minister was capable of addressing these concerns
and bringing the different sections of her own party together so they could
approach the future with a confident and united front? Hardly. She didn’t even seriously
address her problem. Although none were present it was the Greens who
overshadowed the conference proceedings. They-who-must-not-be-named.

If her government were
functioning properly, if Gillard could offer the scintilla of a suggestion that
she might be able to recover, this debate would not be occurring.

Labor appears to have abandoned
any effort to form its own coalition that could advance a broad agenda. It’s
unfair, however, to blame Gillard alone for this. The Greens have never had a
better chance to get some of their policies implemented. But instead of using
their crucial numbers to bargain with Labor, many are simply fixated on
blocking compromise. The inevitable result will be a Liberal government. The
Green agenda will be consigned to the margins as they lose any ability to
ameliorate policy settings.

That’s why their expected victory
next Saturday in the state seat of Melbourne will be the worst outcome possible
for the Greens. It will strengthen the arm of those opposed to working with the
government: the non-politicians who see purity as a substitute for compromise
and stridency as a replacement for persuasion.

As the broad left has fractured.
Tony Abbott is surging forward to occupy the uncontested middle. In the past,
no government’s been able to secure a commanding majority without at least
pretending they’re representing the centre. Labor appears willing to let him.

2 comments:

Tony Abbott is surging forward to occupy the uncontested middle ? Really ? Perhaps a better use is the word 'centre' as in Tony Abbot is surging forward to occupy the uncontested centre right. There is not much middle ground available at the moment.